


Green and gold

by lizzieraindrops



Category: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen R. Donaldson, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: F/M, Gen, Life's colors, Parallels, Post-Series, Reunion, Spoilers for The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Spoilers for Wizards at War, chartreuse, vague resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1337809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieraindrops/pseuds/lizzieraindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes two kinds of power to bring someone back, says a spirit who knows.</p><p> </p><p>  <i> For so high and honorable an estate, "just" seems a poor modifier to choose. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Green and gold

**Author's Note:**

> An explanatory piece on the thoughts behind this artwork: http://stargirlblue.deviantart.com/art/Green-and-gold-441411178
> 
> Dairine is a few years older now, and the search is almost over.

_It takes two kinds of power,_ the husky voice whispered, _to bring someone back from so far away._ In the darkness, Dairine could only see a silvery silhouette in the periphery of her vision.

"Why?" she asked the figure. "Who are you? Why are you telling me this?"

 _Because I'm the one who knows,_ she replied. _It takes two kinds of power, theirs and your own. But you can't know how high the cost will be._

"I'll do it anyway. I won't give up now." _It's been four years,_ she thought _, and I'm so close._

 _I know,_ the shimmering spirit said calmly. _That's why I'm here._

"Who are you?"

 _Someone who's done it. Now, listen,_ the spectre insisted, flickering slightly. Dairine caught the impression of someone leaning toward her. _I used silver-white and Earth-gold, but that won't work for you. You could probably learn to use Earthpower in time; it's close enough to your Life-green. But I don't think it would work anywhere else._

'Well, what _would_ work here?' Dairine asked, frustated by her vagueness. 'Are you talking about Life-colors?'

 _You stand in the space between two shades of Life: your own Earth-emerald, and the Sun-gold of the one you seek,_ the woman said. _You've learned the Sun-magic, and you belong to both now. You can be_ _the brush that blends them._

'How?' Dairine demanded. 'I know where to go, I just don't know how to get there.'

 _It's a matter of tuning to the right frequency, as it were. Use the tools that are yours,_ she said. Dairine could almost see her now, a face harrowed, yet kind and wise. _Use the powers that are yours. Make yourself the key. But be ready for the door to open._

What will happen when it opens?

_I don't know. But something will._

Dairine nodded. _Thank you._ She understood. _What color is your world now?_

The woman smiled in a silvery flash. _Both, and more. Trust yourself._ She turned away and faded to gray, then to pewter, then charcoal, and vanished into the surrounding darkness.

Dairine closed her eyes and looked inward. She'd had the tools since the beginning of the search, and had earned the skills since then. She placed her left hand on the amber stone at her throat, and her right on the emerald droplet that hung below it. She had walked between worlds for a long time; longer than she could comprehend, once, but now she had nearly infinite memory.

 _We will always know who you were,_ said a familiar voice. _We treasure that data._ _Yet from here, you will only become something more, and more yourself._

 _Yes,_ she thought. Two colors of power bloomed beneath her palms, summoned concurrently. She'd even made the link to forge them together, long ago, though she hadn't realized what it was. She flung her hands outward as green and gold light spun out along her arms and spiraled around her in the darkness. The tracery of characters that lay light as lace around her neck burned brilliantly as she spoke them and her newly completed name into existence.

_The spattering sunfire and verdant tendrils of light swirled together into a fiery maelstrom that momentarily blinded her. Then she was bathed in the warmth of a brilliant yellow-green light that could only be called chartreuse. How very Irish, she thought wryly. In the distant background of her mind, she saw the tracery of chartreuse fire joyously etching new data into the pink-purple-red-gold of endless silica._

_The light burned away the darkness and shapes resolved into focus before her, like two layers of a superimposed image being aligned and vanishing into each other. She strode forward, feeling the faint pressure of a single elliptical stone resting on her brow in a circlet of light. She reached out to the figure becoming ever clearer before her and found both her hands clasped tightly in return. She caught a glimpse of another glimmer of green and swish of gold as she rushed forward into a mutual embrace. More chartreuse fire etched the brief instant into an eternal memory._

_They are coming, he said. They will cross the bridge._

_I know, she said. Let them. They'll have to cross_ me _, and I'm not going down without a fight._

_Nor I, he agreed. Then he actually chuckled. Dairine stared at him in amazement. I am humbled by so high an honor, indeed, he said._

_She grinned at the memory, ever crisp. No more modifiers, partner, she said._

_None, he concurred. He began to glow with summoned fire in colors she never knew existed. She conjured her own, the chartreuse core of her power flaking into a thousand frequencies of light in inexpressible shades._

_Hand in hand, in a kaleidoscopic blazing, they turned and leaped into the approaching fray together._

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the parallels between Linden and Dairine's searches for their lost ones. Linden grapples with wild magic and Earthpower, while Dairine seems to straddle two worlds with different Life-colors, and there has been speculation that she 'took a wrong turn.' And of course, there's still the hanging questions of the Sunstone, the emerald, and the single sentence in the Speech it's strung on, which here is the part of her name which describes her role as the bridge between worlds.


End file.
